People

Stanton Everett Smith, local, state, and national officer in the American Federation of Teachers, the Tennessee Federation of Labor, and the Tennessee State Labor Council, was born in Wyoming, Ohio, in 1905, the son of Charles Henry Smith, an accountant.…

William M. Smith was the preeminent Radical Republican leader in Memphis during Reconstruction. As a judge, Smith confronted some of the most controversial legal issues of the period and led the Shelby County Republican Party through decades of Democratic dominance.…

William R. Snodgrass served as comptroller of the treasury in Tennessee for forty-four years (1954-99), longer than any other person in that office. Tennessee is unusual among the states in that the constitutional officers, such as secretary of state, treasurer,…

Thomas S. Spencer is usually regarded as the first white settler in Middle Tennessee. On a long hunt to the area from 1776 to the spring of 1779, he staked out land, planted it, and built cabins on it, and…

The only Tennessee high school athlete to go on to win the Heisman Trophy as the nation's outstanding college football player, Steve Spurrier is best known today as the head football coach of the University of Florida, a fierce rival…

James G. Stahlman was publisher of the Nashville Banner from 1930 until 1972, when he sold the newspaper to the Gannett Corporation. He inherited part of the newspaper from his grandfather, Major Edward Bushrod Stahlman, when he died in 1930;…

John C. Stanton was a controversial railroad contractor who brought economic prosperity and ruin to Chattanooga in the post-Civil War era. A New Hampshire native, persuasive and energetic, he rose by his wits from the laboring ranks to a position…

Peter Staub, a prominent figure in late nineteenth-century Knoxville business, culture, and politics, was born in Switzerland on February 22, 1827. Orphaned at eight years old, Staub immigrated to the United States when he was twenty-seven. He finally settled in…

Almira S. Steele, teacher and missionary, founded the South's first African American orphanage in Chattanooga. Born of Puritan forebears in Chelsea, Massachusetts, (neighboring Boston) on July 23, 1842, the daughter of Benjamin H. and Almira Sylvester Dewing, she was reared…

The foremost promoter of railroads in antebellum Tennessee and the founder and first president of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, Vernon K. Stevenson arrived in Nashville in 1831 and soon opened a dry goods store. Hoping to ensure his financial…

Alexander P. Stewart, educator and Confederate general, was born in Rogersville on October 2, 1821. Known among his men as "Old Straight," Stewart graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1842. Three years later, he resigned his…

Writer and editor Randall Stewart was born in Fayetteville in 1896. In 1898 his family moved to Nashville, where he grew up and was educated through his undergraduate years at Vanderbilt, from which he was graduated in 1917 as the…

Kate Bradford Stockton, a socialist and the first woman to run for governor in Tennessee, was born in Stockton, California, in 1880. She was a direct descendant of William Bradford, second governor of Plymouth Plantation. Her grandfather, Arthur Bradford of…

Tracy Caulkins Stockwell ranks among Tennessee's most successful Olympians. She began swimming at age eight and, under the aegis of the Nashville Aquatic club, qualified for the Olympic Trials five years later. At fourteen, Caulkins won her first national title,…

Anna Rorex Stokely established one of the nation's major canning companies. She was the daughter of James Addison and Rebecca Badgett Rorex, born in 1852 on a farm along the French Broad River in Cocke County. In 1872 she married…

Barton W. Stone, minister and key figure in Tennessee and Kentucky frontier revivalism of the early 1800s, established a "Christian" movement that later became part of the Disciples of Christ. Born in Port Tobacco, Maryland, Stone grew up in southern…

Samuel H. Stout was the son of Nashville carriage-maker and city councilman Samuel Van Dyke Stout and Catherine Tannehill Stout. Educated at Moses Stevens's Classical and Mathematical Seminary and the University of Nashville, Stout taught school and apprenticed in medicine…

Self-taught sculptor Vannoy Streeter was known as “Wireman” because of the fanciful creations he fashioned from coat hangers and metal wire. Best known for his depictions of the Tennessee Walking Horse, Streeter also created scores of other images using wrapped…

Novelist and short story writer Thomas S. Stribling became the first Tennessean to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature. Stribling was born in Clifton on March 4, 1881, the son of Christopher and Amelia Waits Stribling. After abandoning teaching and…

Master architect and designer of the Tennessee State Capitol, William F. Strickland was born in 1788 in Navesink, New Jersey. When he was two years old, his parents, John and Elizabeth Strickland, moved the family to Philadelphia. In 1803 William…